Ferox glanced around, but saw no sign that anyone else understood the words. He wondered whether Lepidina knew what they meant. She certainly sang as if she did. The heroine in the tale kept telling the hero that no one would travel ‘that country’ until they had performed a series of impossible feats. Each time he answered, ‘In that sweet country, I’ll rest my weapon,’ and the story told of how he undertook all the tasks and won his bride. The lady sang it through, her eyes never leaving him.

The applause was long and sincere.

‘You could almost civilise the barbarians,’ Claudius Super told her. Vegetus announced that next time his wife should entertain them with her dancing, and perhaps the lady would consent to play for her.

‘Perhaps,’ Sulpicia Lepidina said, and her husband regretted that it was time to bid their guests good night for tomorrow would be another busy day.

‘You have a friend there,’ Crispinus whispered to Ferox, catching him watching their hostess.

VIII

THE ARMY’S DAY began at Vindolanda much as it did at Syracuse or Eboracum or anywhere else, and this morning Ferox was glad of such familiar routine after the strangeness of the night before. Dawn found him in the principia of the fort, standing with the row of officers from cohors VIIII Batavorum milliaria equitata in front of the aedes, where the standards stood securely in the slots made for them in the plank floor. There were ten signa, one for each of the centuries composing the infantry of the cohort, each with a number of large silvered discs mounted on the pole, topped by a wreathed ornamental spearhead. The eight turmae of cavalry had their own smaller standards, with a single symbol and cross bar trailing weighted ribbons beneath the elaborate heads. Almost half of the cohort was currently absent on detached service, but the most important standards all remained here unless the unit as a whole marched out. Any big detachment carried a vexillum, a square red flag hanging from a crossbar on an otherwise plain pole, the banner bearing the name of the cohort in gold lettering. Empty slots in the floor alongside the single flag suggested that two important vexillations were away. In the centre of the mass of decorated poles was the imago of Trajan. In spite of yesterday’s wet parade, even the tiniest metal fitting on each standard gleamed, while the shafts were freshly oiled and polished. Ferox had heard some men say that soldiers worshipped their standards. That was a lie, but in any half-decent unit they worshipped the idea that the standards represented.